"Zarch is a computer game written by David Braben (better known as the co-author of Elite) in three months in 1987, for the release of the Acorn Archimedes computer.

Zarch started off as a demo called Lander and was bundled with almost all releases of the Acorn Archimedes. Zarch was later renamed as Virus and ported to the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM PC compatible and ZX Spectrum. A few clones/games based on Zarch have also been created fairly recently, namely a version for Linux, also called Zarch, a remake for Windows (written in Blitz BASIC) called Z-Virus, and a version crossing Zarch with Pac-Man called ZarchMan (see external Links below).

The game was groundbreaking for the time, featuring a three-dimensional mouse-controlled craft (the "lander") flying over a tile-rendered landscape that dazzled reviewers in a primarily 2D-dominated game industry - ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment) magazine led with the headline "SOLID 3D - the future of games?" when it reviewed Zarch with a score of 979, the highest rating ACE had given at that time, only bettered by the later Amiga port Virus at 981."